View of Endemic time-spaces of Finland: Aquatic regimes

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URN:NBN:fi:tsv-oa40845 DOI: 10.11143/40845

Endemic time-spaces of Finland: Aquatic regimes

TERO MUSTONEN

Mustonen, Tero (2014). Endemic time-spaces of Finland: Aquatic regimes. Fen- nia 192: 2, pp. 120–139. ISSN 1798-5617.

This article explores the endemic time-spaces of Finnish aquatic regimes. More precisely, it examines the socio-ecological relationships between Finns and lakes, rivers, and marshes-mires. First, the 'engine' of endemic time-space research, land use, and occupancy documentation, is explored in the Finnish context. Then two catchment areas, Kokemäenjoki in Western Finland and Vuoksi in Eastern Finland, provide cases which illustrate both past endemic time-spaces and surviving aspects of cultural readings of lakes and rivers. The ongoing winter seining in Lake Puruvesi in North Karelia emerges as an unbroken practice, with deep roots, that maintains the endemic time-spaces of a traditional Finnish relationship with a lake. As industrial uses of catchment areas, zoning, and environmental permitting exclude endemic readings inherent on the land and waterscapes, solutions are explored through mapping, along with its limitations, as a form bridging the gap between local realities and resource extraction.

Keywords: Kokemäenjoki, time-space, oral history, Vuoksi, winter seining, Finn- ish tradition

Tero Mustonen, The Department of Geographical and Historical Studies, Univer- sity of Eastern Finland, P. O. Box 111, 80101 Joensuu, Finland, E-mail: tero@

snowchange.org

Introduction

“My father told me that the people of Hiisi [one of the old Finnish spirit-gods] travelled on the Lake Kuivasjärvi in winter time. I do not remember the kind of noise they made, but old people said that they are there, moving.” From a conversation with a 92-year-old subsistence fisherman, Kuivasjärvi, Snowchange Kuivasjärvi Oral History Tape 120214

“Endemic” refers to the internal, place-bound, and culturally-specific (Sheridan & Longboat 2006; Meriläinen-Hyvärinen 2008: 36) in human societies. Meriläinen-Hyvärinen (2008: 36) de- fines the components of a nature-based endemicity to consist of a community, a cultural core, and the continuation of a livelihood. Concentric geo- graphs (Lehtinen 2011) are another way to frame the particularity of this place- and culture-based approach. Also central to the concept of endemicity is local, sometimes traditional, knowledge

(Berkes 1999; Luotonen 2006; Sheridan & Long- boat 2006; Heikkilä & Fondahl 2010; Lehtinen &

Mustonen 2013).

Time and space as well as their interpretations are much explored topics in human geography (Thrift & May 2001: 5). To address the spatial turn in theory, Thrift and May (2001: 5) define the concept of timespace, or time-space, as a “spatial variation a constitutive part rather than added di- mension of the multiplicity and heterogeneity of social time”. They stress (2001: 5) that time-space is the product of dynamic and unequal inter-rela- tionalities. They stress the need to 'live' or explore 'lived' time-spaces in their heterogeneity.

Endemic time-space is therefore a range of spatial-temporal practices of a specific culture, group or ethnic unit. Linda Tuhiwai Smith (2005: 50), a Maori from Aotearoa (New Zealand), explicitly states in reference to the time-space apparatus that: "These concepts are particularly significant for some indigenous languages because the lan-

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guage makes no clear or absolute distinction between the two: for example, the Maori word for time or space is the same. Other indigenous languages have no related word for either space or time, having instead a series of very precise terms for parts of these ideas or for relationships between the idea and something else in the envi- ronment."

The endemic time-spaces of Finns have remained in a hidden realm (Lehtinen 2000). In order to shed light on this topic, this article reviews three cases while tracing and illustrating the surviving characteristics of these relationships. Aside from the Sámi regions, the spatial ordering that Finns have regarding aquatic ecosystems, the sea, lakes, rivers, marsh-mires (Lehtinen 2000), and other water bodies, has developed to contain almost historically diametri- cally opposing views in contemporary times.

Typically across the country, general knowledge production (Mustonen 2009) such as schooling, Western religions, the enforcement of capitalis- tic-intensive resource economies, and mass media, have eroded the local ecological knowledge (Luotonen 2006) and endemic time-spaces built on local traditions.

As Lehtinen (2000) and Maaranen (2002) explore in the case of marsh-mires, this crux can be summarised into, firstly, utilitarian uses and agrarian landscapes derived from agricultural needs (for example, flood control, water regula- tion, additional farm land) (Maaranen 2002: 104, Mustonen 2013a) and secondly, a varied fisheries-hunting approach (Sarmela 1991) which include(d) various endemic time- or 'mirescapes' (Lehtinen 2000), for example. The latter is predominantly concerned with the ongoing productivity and health of water-bodies as stable, near to natural units with cultural continuums (Lehtin- en 2000). Such a division is naturally an abstrac- tion; local cases can be hybrids and exceptions to this summarization (Maaranen 2002: 104).

The crux is not only an academic view, as cases around the country, such as Lake Jukajärvi (Mustonen & Mustonen 2013a), demonstrate.

This North Karelian lake was lowered for the third time in 1959 (Tikkanen 2002a: 37, 2002b) to increase the amount of farmland (Maaranen 2002). Local fishermen opposed the action, mostly on the basis of potential damage to fisheries and impacts on other uses of the lake, such as bird hunting. Lehtinen (2000) and Tikkanen (2002b) confirm that no 'peaceful' balance has

been found between the different uses of aquatic resources.

Sarmela (1991) offers a bridge in this cultural change from ‘traditional’ hunting-fishing economies into the industrial age, with ensuing changes to the relationship with nature. He uses bear hunting as a case to demonstrate the shift in per- spectives regarding nature as a system of reci- procity to a resource that humans can utilise. The central element for the purposes of this paper is the environmental impact that different Finnish practices may have on nature and a given ecosystem. Mustonen (2009) argued that while such development may have taken place, the community of seiners in Eastern Finland demonstrate a more complex reality, where the elements of the hunting-fishing view of nature have been par- tially preserved; it is being maintained by the contemporary fisheries.

For the purposes of this paper, three regions and cases are explored to investigate the preservation and status of such endemic time-spaces in relationship to aquatic ecosystems. It is argued that the hunting-fishing view of lakes contains an endemic ‘regime’, a long historical continuum that Finns have had (Raussi 1966; Saiha & Virk- kunen 1986), and, in local communities which continue the practice, may still possess. It portrays the varied, rich heterogeneity that Thrift and May (2001) identify as a part of a time-space.

The cultural process, deriving from the utilisa- tion of water bodies for farming in Finland (Maaranen 2002), has developed from an agricultural complex into a technological-industrial (or -economic) use of aquatic systems (Antikain- en & Vartiainen 2002; Husso & Raento 2002a), with direct and immediate environmental conse- quences (Tikkanen 2002a: 36, 2002b). As Lehtin- en (2000) demonstrates, this technological-industrial use contains lexicons and a naming of nature that begins to be vastly removed from the local community’s understandings of the same places, as in the case with the ‘classification’ of marsh-mires.

Illustrated by earlier research (Mustonen 2013a, 2013b), the majority of the decisions regarding Finnish aquatic catchment areas, including zoning and environmental permitting, are based on scientific expert knowledge (Hus- so & Raento 2002a), linear times and spaces, and rational worldviews (Lehtinen 2010: 109).

“Nature management” dismisses cultural and social diversity, and replaces it with science

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and nation-state-dominated views (Mustonen 2013a).

In this time of rapid change (Pretty 2011; Jef- fries et al. 2013), a fundamental rethinking is necessary in order to guarantee the survival of local cultures and ecosystems (Lehtinen &

Mustonen 2013). Husso & Raento (2002a: 161) argue that the cultural geography of Finland is being ’re-shuffled’ and in this process the traditions of Finns are receiving renewed interest.

Consequently, an engagement and respectful work with the people and their endemic time- spaces may provide exciting and crucial ways of detecting rapid ecosystem degradation (Mustonen 2013a) or the identification of the sites of ecological change (Mustonen 2013b;

Mustonen & Feodoroff 2013). This is in line with what Lehtinen (2010: 119) calls geographers to do; to conduct “a serious assessment and ongoing self-critique through constant re-formula- tion of our customary conceptual frameworks in the effort to open intellectual space for other views and ways of interacting with the world.”

Maaranen (2002) states that cultural landscapes are subjective interpretations of their elements. Therefore, the practical aspects of including such endemic time-spaces in land use planning, permitting, and zoning includes the production of user maps (Hudson 2001; Mazzullo 2013). While they are insufficient for portraying the entire range and depth of human agency regarding water bodies, the key aspects of endemic time-spaces, fixed on maps, in careful and respectful cooperation with the people possessing and guiding them, can offer ways to avoid the ecological damage and to open doors of emer- gence to the hidden, deep connections that Finns have with their lakes in this time of change and development.

Maaranen (2002: 101−102) agrees by saying that reconstructions of past land use and settle- ment patterns offer a means to understand cultural landscapes and changes in them. This paper seeks to illustrate the characteristics of these endemic time-spaces in Western and Eastern Finn- ish watersheds. Central to this is the concept of apaja (Pennanen 1976, 1979, 1986; Nieminen &

Mustonen 2004; Mustonen 2009) within the cultural complex of Finnish fisheries.

Apaja can be defined as a place of catch or fishery (Pennanen 1979), but it may also refer to a plentiful catch. Mustonen (2009) documents the multiple roles apaja has for winter seiners. It

is both a place and a time, during which the winter seine is pulled. It may consist of up to five

‘scapes’ of simultaneous knowing: the bottom of a lake, a water pillar, the underside of the ice, the upper part of the ice, and the visible landscape at the specific site of harvest (Mustonen 2009).

’(Land)scaping’ (Lehtinen 2010: 118) however compresses the reality as experienced through the fisheries’ practice.

Apaja is also the customary ownership of the fishermen. An apaja is named as a hydronym (Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission 2007; Heikkilä and Fondahl 2010), and can demonstrate layered human use and presence on a lake, for example, through an event that hap- pened at the site, or a story from a long time ago, or a marker of cultural change, as is the case with those apaja sites from Lake Näsijärvi which reflect the arrival of Karelian settlers (Suomela 1976; Maaranen 2002: 106) to the region of Häme after the war (Nieminen & Mustonen 2004) (Table 1).

Heikkilä & Fondahl (2010: 113) indicate that, in cases of other boreal cultures, hydronyms convey specific attributes of a place, its resource potential and associated practices. Hydronyms relate a people’s culture to the water and ways they use it.

Nieminen & Mustonen (2004) illustrate how the documented apaja sites (Fig. 1) of the northern part of Lake Näsijärvi reflect the seasonal uses of the lake in seining in the case of western Finland. Additionally, apaja sites reflect different fish species to be harvested as a part of the seasonal round on the lake. Seiners also endemically rate and qualify different apaja sites according to their productivity. Like the case of Sámi notions of reindeer (Lehtinen 2010), the apaja is hard to convey as a culturally relevant time-space, yet essential as an element of the surviving endemic aspect of a relationship with a lake.

The time-spaces endemic to Finnish aquatic regimes will be explored by analysing material from three projects in these areas, with the scientific purpose of exploring how such time-spaces survive, and are maintained by predominantly rural populations along these catchment areas, rivers and lakes. More specifically, differences in the Western-Eastern axis of these practices are expected to illustrate different responses to mapping, documentation, and preservation of local knowledge.

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Theoretical framework of Finnish endemic time-spaces

The notion of ”endemic time-space” has emerged in the evolving global scholarship regarding the ways indigenous and some local societies around the world are organizing their socio-ecological realities (Mustonen 2012). In northern geographical literature, one way of exploring the endemic time- spaces are the different, yet intimate, contacts that local culture have with their places. Heikkilä and Fondahl (2010) explore one such case with the Tl’azt’en Nation from Canada. They (2010: 106) argue that hydronyms and toponyms, as expres- sions of culturally-relevant ways to organise time- space, “anchor indigenous identity to…places”.

Lehtinen (2010: 106) identifies a ’tension’ between how local cultural practices and state/technological-industrial governance understand a place. In his view (2010: 107), the act of naming can be read in a political context, where the same place, depending on ’whose’ naming-power is more dominant, can produce that place, identity, and relationship. In Finland it is the Sámi people who are considered to be indigenous by international law (Husso & Raento 2002b). Therefore culturally- relevant endemicity of time and space often fo- cuses on them in Finland. This paper explores these concepts, their exportability and the applica- bility that Smith (2005) refers to in the context of Finns with different aquatic ecosystems.

The concept of endemic time-spaces (Lehtinen 2000 for marsh-mires; Thrift & May 2001; Smith 2005), also referred to as ’earthviews’ (Lehtinen &

Mustonen 2013), and cultural readings of landscapes are largely hidden from and lacking in environmental planning, zoning, and assessments of watersheds in Finland. Concurrently, the plans for various industrial uses of aquatic socio-ecological systems, here ’regimes’, in Finland are based on linear worldviews and understandings of time and space. ’Regime’ may contain the notion that the relationship with nature is one of subjugation and exploitation. The particular cultural ‘regime’ focused on in this paper is built on cohabitation with the bodies of water that the Finnish fishing populations seem to demonstrate.

Lehtinen (2000) proposes that in the case of marsh-mires, specific, endemic time-scapes or

’mirescapes’ based on gathering economies exist, which are mostly hidden from the official or public views. In fact, local people possessing them suffer

from double disassociation according to Lehtinen (2000): firstly, they are excluded from the decision-making regime which transforms marsh-mires into zones of resource production, and secondly, they have different lexicons of engagement with marsh-mires than the classifications of categorized science (Husso & Raento 2002a: 262).

Lehtinen (2011) offers a way forward; according to him, there is a need to engage with the particular geographies of local knowledge (Berkes 1999;

Luotonen 2006), also known as concentric readings of time and space. Instead of increasing their marginality, geographers should embrace these

“zones of withdrawal” (Lehtinen 2011: 18). Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission (2007) explains that the problem persists also in North America. Lehtinen and Mustonen (2013) argue that a new engagement can be achieved methodologically by applying ‘earthviews’, the oral and optic histories of the local people in a manner that is respectful for their cultures, situated knowledges and co-authorship (Smith 2005; Great Lakes Indi- an Fish & Wildlife Commission 2007), co-learning and co-production of knowledge (Lehtinen 2011).

By exploring cases and the significance of endemic time-spaces within two major watersheds in Fin- land, the Kokemäenjoki and Vuoksi catchment areas, the qualities and characteristics of such surviving and ongoing cultural readings of aquatic ecosystems will be illustrated.

This view rests on the recently adopted meth- odology of Finnish community-based research (Mustonen & Feodoroff 2013) in documenting ecological change. Anthropology and other disci- plines have produced maps of human activities, including fisheries (Vilkuna 1974; Turunen 1976) for decades in Finland. However, by allowing the fishermen and residents of watersheds to emerge as co-researchers and co-authors (Mustonen 2013a), a deeper reading of a lake or a river un- der change may emerge.

This hidden, often forgotten realm of lived relationships (Lehtinen 2000) with water challenges the measurement-bound understanding of a catchment area and may allow potential new av- enues of study and reforms in zoning and land use, which impact these socio-ecological systems. To narrow the scope and extent of the present article, it is limited to the aquatic ecosystems, here defined as rivers, lakes, the Baltic Sea, and marsh-mire ecosystems (Lehtinen 2000). Ter- restrial time-spaces will be explored in future publications.

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At the core of describing endemic time-spaces is the notion of human land (here, water body) use and occupancy (Hudson 2001; Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission 2007; Lehtinen 2011;

Mazzullo 2013). Pälsi (1924) was amongst the first researchers in modern times to use maps to document and explain the endemic time-spaces and ice uses of the Karelian Suursaari seal hunters in the 1920s. He was decades ahead of his colleagues in North America, who began land use and occupancy studies connected with land claim negotiations in the 1970s (Hudson 2001). While the initial purpose of the mapping exercises referred to by Pälsi (1924) and Hudson (2001) are different, both try to convey unseen uses of an area previously unknown to the public.

While the North American land use and occupancy studies were and are connected with issues of human inequity and legal rights for land ownership, Pälsi (1924) acted, for the most part, driven by scientific curiosity to investigate the life-ways of the little-known community of Suursaari seal hunters. Since then such activities have become stand- ard in the Western Hemisphere in countries with significant indigenous populations (Hudson 2001;

Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission 2007), especially in the Arctic and sub-Arctic. The mapping of indigenous topo- and hydronyms is done also in areas of North America which are un- der a treaty (Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission 2007). Land use and occupancy mapping is, to a large extent, missing from Finnish debates on questions of how, as is the case in the present paper, aquatic ecosystems and human societies interact over large historical periods as a part of multi-faceted ecosystems. A question of rel- evance therefore emerges: to what extent is it ap- plicable to install land use and occupancy studies in the Finnish context when legal land use debates are not fuelling them.

The need to document and explore land use and occupancy issues in Finland arises partly from the same scientific curiosity that initiated Pälsi’s (1924) and his contemporaries work. We still do not ade- quately know how Finns relate to their watersheds and aquatic regimes. Simultaneously, the industrial interest in these regions, places, and spaces is overwhelming (Lehtinen 2000; Maaranen 2002;

Lehtinen 2011; Mustonen 2013a, 2013b). Urgent new ways to understand, navigate, and solve the overlapping interests are needed (Lehtinen 2011).

Therefore land use and occupancy studies, prop- erly adapted from their foreign contexts, combined

with the engagement with oral histories (Macdon- ald 2000) situated in the areas in question may provide a crucial new evidence of human relationships and presence.

Hudson (2001) warns geographers about a trap.

While two- and three-dimensional maps and data- bases convey a version of reality bound on maps and fixed on demarcated territories (Antikainen &

Vartiainen 2002: 186), they do not convey the multi-dimensional reality many indigenous and local communities retain in their connections with their places and the ecosystems they co-habit (Sheridan & Longboat 2006; Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission 2007; Lehtinen &

Mustonen 2013). Mazzullo (2013), reviewing the disputes of forestry in the Finnish Sámi community of Nellim, demonstrates that maps are indeed, even with their shortcomings, effective tools for negotiations on different uses of lands and waters.

Lehtinen (2011) agrees with Hudson’s (2001) view and acknowledges that ’landscaping’ can be a co- lonial act if we are not aware of the concentric, particular geographies of a place.

In the case of Finland, there are many ethnic groups which possess prehistorical and historical endemic time-spaces within the contemporary borders of the country (Husso & Raento 2002b).

These include, among others, the three Sámi na- tions of Skolts, Inari and North Sámi, the Karelians in the extreme eastern parts of the country, the Swedish minority along the western coastal areas of the country, the Roma(ni) (Pulma 2012), and lastly and most heterogeneously the Finns themselves (Husso & Raento 2002b). Husso & Raento (2002b) argue that many of these groups have preserved “regional hearths”. While such divisions can be addressed and criticized from multiple viewpoints, the Finns are not indigenous people by law. Contested issues may be, for example, various notions and definitions of Sáminess, locations along urban-rural land uses, and so on (Husso &

Raento 2002b).

For the purposes of this article, we can summarize that the land use and occupancy discussions in the present are primarily concerned with the indigenous Sámi and their struggles to recognize title, possible ownership, and stewardship of their home regions (Mustonen & Mustonen 2011;

Mustonen 2012; Mustonen & Feodoroff 2013;

Mazzullo 2013). Such debates also rage on in neighbouring countries, including Sweden (Syr- jämäki & Mustonen 2013). While the Sámi have begun to investigate this topic, and have also been

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the targets of land use based science efforts for hundreds of years, the role, extent, and qualities of the Finnish endemic time-spaces and the land/

water-uses they contain, remain an enigma that has been infrequently explored, especially in re- cent times (Mustonen 2013b).

For certain aspects of communal fisheries, the past and present are a vehicle to explore the topic.

Sarmela (1991) demonstrates the overall cultural change associated with nature, and the increased role of farming in that process. Fisheries (Mustonen 2009), especially ongoing seining (Pennanen 1979), challenge Sarmela’s analysis of a total change by preserving the elements of a hunting- fishing view on nature.

In addition to the large corpus of cultural texts held by the Finnish Literature Society (Suomalais- en Kirjallisuuden Seura 2014), some books, such as Raussi (1966) and the works of Into Sandberg (Saiha & Virkkunen 1986), contain descriptions of this endemic regime while it was to a large extent still functioning. To deepen the role of the endemic time-space regime, two authors practicing the system can be referred to. First, Raussi (1966) provides a clear description of such time-spaces. At the core of the ‘system’ are the seasonal, communal fishery activities of a given community. Care should naturally be taken when modern terminol- ogies, such as regimes and ‘system’ thinking, are imposed on traditional governance structures (Arc- tic Council 2013: Introduction to indigenous knowledge).

Raussi (1966: 67−79) provides a clear description from the community of Virolahti, located on the Finnish coast of the Baltic Sea, from the early 1800s. Communal decisions regarding the leader- ship, family harvest areas, seasonal aspects of seining, and other features of this fishery are de- scribed without parallel in their details of how Finns used to fish. His views constitute an insider’s perspective of these practices.

Secondly, Saiha and Virkkunen (1986) document the cultural views of Into Sandberg. He was a fisherman and author from the western coast of Finland near Pori. He goes to great lengths in shar- ing his endemic time-spaces of the fisheries, winds, skies, weather, sea, coast, and forests of his native region. If Pälsi (1924) observed the seal hunters as an outsider on the now ceded Suursaari Island in the 1920s, Sandberg lived inside his culture and told of it in both oral history and through his writings in media and books (Saiha & Virk- kunen 1986).

Raussi (1966) and Sandberg (Saiha & Virkkunen 1986) also explain the elements of the Finnish endemic customary organisation of fisheries based on the family use areas and traditional notions of

‘ownership’. In North American fishing societies, such as the Tl’azt’ev Nation, a similar way of or- ganising harvest is called keyoh (Heikkilä & Fon- dahl 2010).

Raussi’s materials constitute elements of local water stewardship. Käki (1969: 19−20) offers a rare documentation of such customary system that was recognized by the Finnish state. He writes that the island of Ulko-Kalla, located on the Western Baltic Coast of Finland, has a self-autonomy: “Kal- la has a self-government. All fishermen can decide to certain extent their own issues. They also have a limited juridical power. No person can be sent to jail, but can be driven away from Kalla for good.”

The surviving apaja system with its hydronyms in use in Lake Puruvesi (Pennanen 1979), one of the cases of this paper, is a living example of an endemic understanding of a traditional steward- and ownership associated with a lake (Mustonen 2009: 171). This endemic aquatic regime received attention from academic scholars early on. Sirelius (2009) launched the Finnish academic inquiry into fisheries, both in Finland and in the perceived homelands of the “Finno-Ugric” people, from West Siberia to the Baltic lands. He focused first and foremost on the technical aspects of the fishing equipment and regional differences of such tools. Some observations made by Sirelius (for example 2009: 242) contain information about the endemic organisation of seining crews, seasonal harvests, and sites of fisheries, which provide a continuum in the academic review of the practice, and complements Raussi’s (1966) observations as an insider.

A large body of academic material has been produced in fisheries studies in Finland. They have included some user maps, which have appeared in land use documentation since the days of Pälsi (1924). There are a few examples that specifically focus on the land/water/ice use documentation and local Finnish knowledge, like Vilkuna’s (1974) work which is a prominent example of the Kemi- joki catchment area and salmon harvest. For inland waters, Virtaranta (1976) provides a clear view of the White Sea Karelian communal lake fishery in the community of Suomussalmi. In the 2000s, Nieminen and Mustonen (2004) explored the seining territories of Western Finland’s professional fishermen using community-based methods

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and Mustonen (2009) carried out a similar study in North Karelia, while Luotonen (2006) investigated the Finnish Baltic coast.

Luotonen (2006) argues that the endemic time- spaces (Thrift & May 2001) manifest through the residency of local people, in this case on the Baltic coast. Mustonen (2009) argues that in the situation where cosmology has been broken, traditional activities, such as non-motorized winter seining re- connect people to the land, ice, and waterscapes through the doing itself; this topic of loss and re- turn is also being discussed by Sheridan and Long- boat (2006) for the Mohawk people in Canada.

The impacts of climate change triggered an interest in the local traditional knowledge of the coastal Finland in the early 2000s when Mäkinen and Mustonen (2004) provided maps and accounts of the Swedish-Finnish long duration seal hunting journeys on the North Baltic throughout the 1900s.

To explore the aquatic, endemic time-spaces of contemporary Finland and its communities, a watershed-based view needs to be adopted. Those communities and individuals who are situated along the catchment areas of various water-bodies, it is argued, may possess the remnants of the Finn- ish endemic time-spaces (Mustonen 2013b). After World War II, a group of Karelian seiners arrived in Päijänne in Central Finland. Suomela (1976) de- scribes this group and their knowledge of fisheries.

The seiners seem to have considered the local fishery to be ’primitive’ and underdeveloped in com- parison with the large nets and methods they brought with them from Lake Ladoga. Suomela (1976) links this to the position the Karelians en- joyed at the forefront of net development in the early 1900s due to their close proximity to St. Pe- tersburg and other trade centres, as opposed to the inland location of the Päijänne fisheries. This opens the complexities of endemic practices and their reviews in the contemporary Finnish context.

Based on the earthviews (Lehtinen & Mustonen 2013) Finns have, we can deduce some characteristics of culturally-relevant, but for the most part, hidden readings of a waterscape still in existence.

Such endemic time-spaces are threatened by the industrial uses of the catchment areas. However, it is in the last 50−60 years that the speed, scale, and negative ecological impacts of linear time-spaces and production regimes have left deep marks on these catchment areas (Lehtinen & Mustonen 2013). We can assess the local communities and those individuals possessing endemic readings as the subjects of actions and power directed towards

the exploitation of these locations for various purposes, whether it be for profit, for “the common good” or for flood control.

Common industrial uses of watersheds include hydroelectric power production, forestry, mining, pulp and paper manufacturing, agriculture, roads and infrastructure, and urbanisation. In this paper, the role of peat production (Rytteri 2002; Mustonen 2013a) on the marsh-mires stands out as a case in point and is prominently featured in the two catchment areas and cases within them. To summarize, most of the time industrial uses and impacts on the watersheds result from the linear, demarcated understandings of a reality (Vilkuna 1974; Mustonen 2013b), which do not include the endemic time- spaces of the local people.

Therefore, such alternate readings, rooted and developed in their places and local cultures (Lehtinen & Mustonen 2013), are in direct conflict with the industrial demarcations of land and zoning (Hudson 2001). While in theory such juxtapo- sition helps to analyse the cases and local knowledge and endemic time-spaces, reality is far more varied, meshed, and complex. The distinction between imposed, demarcated uses of the catchment areas and endemic readings (Sarmela 1991;

Lehtinen 2000) are ’separated’ into opposite, bi- nary categories for the purposes of the analysis in the paper, but, for the most part, they remain hidden (Lehtinen 2000). Lehtinen (2000) goes further to argue that there is a double disassociation tak- ing place – local communities in rural areas are removed both from the modern decision making and “science talk” which is used to demarcate, uti- lize, and harvest various aquatic ecosystems.

Methods

To shed light on the hidden (Lehtinen 2000) realities of Finnish endemic time-spaces and to explore them, two catchment areas and three cases are used to illustrate the quality and characteristics of such systems. Methodologically, this is accom- plished using mapping of endemic time-spaces, oral histories, photos, and media accounts. These contemporary time-spaces manifest best through the reciprocal relationship that Finns have with their fisheries.

The first case demonstrates the endemic time- spaces associated with the apaja sites by mapping water-uses and hydronyms from Western Finland.

It is based on a nine-year engagement with fisher-

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man Ahlgrén, between 2004−2011 to produce apaja maps from the northern part of Lake Näsijärvi. An earlier non-analysed, Finnish version of maps was published in 2004 (Nieminen & Mustonen 2004).

Additional methods included the documentation of oral histories with Ahlgrén from 2002 to 2010 (Snow- change Ahlgrén Oral History Tapes 2002−2010).

In the second case, the use of both oral and optic histories as a village-based watershed restoration activity illustrates how the endemic time-spaces, and concern for the loss of ecological habitat, can be used to complement scientific tools. This helps to determine how, what, and where things have changed, as well as what it means, both from the endemic frame and from a more generalized knowledge production. Oral history interviews were conducted with the community people in two fieldwork periods, in October 2013 and in February 2014.

Narrative analysis (Cortazzi 2001) was employed to identify key markers in the materials. Each visit last- ed a week and the interviewed fishermen had been selected beforehand by the fishermen’s organisation of Lake Kuivasjärvi. The previous literature of local knowledge (Valonen 1945; Laaksonen 1999) in the area was also reviewed. Local people wished to be quoted anonymously and the case study was fund- ed by the WAPEAT – Water Management and Peat Production: From Relevant Facts to Effective Norms -project.

Thirdly, a surviving seining culture in Lake Puru- vesi is reviewed by utilizing literature from the community from the 1970s (Pennanen 1976, 1979, 1986) to the 2000s (Mustonen 2009), participant observation from 2005−2014 (Meriläinen-Hyvärin- en 2008) as a member of the seining crew (Mustonen 2014a) and lastly, in different ways that the seiners react to the mapping of their apaja sites as contemporary holders of these sites, knowledge, and culture. Complementing materials are derived from a long-running oral history project with the fishermen and references to scholarly materials from the 1970s to the 2000s will be made. A total of six fishermen were collaborators here and allowed their names to be used. Original research was conducted as a part of a doctoral dissertation (Mustonen 2009) and then continued using long-term observational research.

By highlighting the Western and Eastern watersheds and cases from them, the various stages of endemic time-spaces can be seen. Central to the paper is the manifestation of these concepts using the communal seining with its apajas, and its associated hydronyms.

Case of northern part of Lake Näsijärvi seining in the Kokemäki watershed

The Kokemäenjoki River catchment area is a major watershed in Western Finland, with a total territory of 27,000 km². The river flows through the regions of Pirkanmaa and Satakunta, and bypasses several human settlements along its stream before dis- charging in the Baltic Sea close to the coastal city of Pori. Today this former salmon territory suffers from various industrial impacts, including hydro- power, agriculture, forestry, pulp, and mining activities as well as peat production. The catchment area is rather young, approximately 6500 years old (Hämeen ELY-keskus 2014).

Lake Näsijärvi is a major lake in this catchment area (Nieminen & Mustonen 2004). Simo Ahlgrén (1924−2011), a professional fisherman, who lived on the shores of the lake for most of the 20^th century, documented the summer seining apaja catch sites of the regions' fishermen throughout the 1940s (Nieminen & Mustonen 2004: 52). Ahlgrén was deeply involved in the development of fishermen’s organisation, competitions, and union activities throughout the 1900s. In the early 2000s, these apaja site maps were digitally drawn and reproduced.

Ahlgrén was like Sandberg (Saiha & Virkkunen 1986) in the sense that he mastered the skills of summer seining while at the same time writing texts and speeches, and making maps and paint- ings related to his in-depth knowledge of Lake Näsijärvi. The fishermen also knew each other.

By exploring the apaja (Mustonen 2009) catch sites of the northern part of Lake Näsijärvi we can see the detailed view of a seiner regarding a Finn- ish lake and its features. Each site has a name, some of which are linked to time immemorial or early historical times. They are sustained by the seining practice and, for the most part, were orally transferred. A site also possesses knowledge regarding the type of fish that should be harvested in the repeated cycles of the moon and different weather, including winds (Nieminen & Mustonen 2004).

More specifically there are 101 apaja sites on the northern part of Lake Näsijärvi. There are 'general' sites for all fish species and numerous specific sites for European smelt (Osmerus eperlanus), including spawning locations, and vendace (Core- gonus albula). These schooling fish constituted pri- mary catches in the 1940s when the seining was

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Name of the apaja– fish harvestedName of the apaja– fish harvestedName of the apaja– fish harvested 1.Isonkiven apaja – ES 37. Kiiruun apaja (Virtasalmi) – ES 73. Hevosniemi 2.Kuorreapaja – ES 38. Unnekiven niska – ES and V74. Röyniönpoolin apaja 3.Rantalan laivasillanpieli – ES 39. Pässinsalmen apaja – V 75. Saunaranta – spawning ES, in Autumn 4.Rantalan Kirkkonokka – ES and V40. Kirvessaaren apaja – spawning ES76. Röyniön saunaranta 5.Kirkkonokka 41. Kuolemanlahti – ES 77. Pikku-Röyniö 6.Vanhankylänlahti 42. Honkaluodonnokka (for night time seining) – a lot of ES78. Salmensuu 7.Karinnokanpieli 43. Honkaniemen apaja 79. Vesasalon pooki– spawning ES, in Autumn 8.Karinnokan apaja 44. Lauttakallio – mixed catch, B80. Kallioranta 9.Ristisaaren itäpään apaja 45. Honkaniemenlahti – V 81. Kotirannan apaja 10. Ristisaaren pohjoinen 46. Majaniemen apaja – small, young ES82. Vääränmännyn apaja 11. Hassonnokka – V 47. Kariaisen johde – ES 83. Kuopparannan apaja 12. Johteenapaja – V 48. Kariaisperä – ES 84. Hietanokka 13. Kuttilo – V 49. Kariaisennokka (low quality apaja) – ES 85. Pikkuniityn ranta 14. Karinsalmi – V (famous) 50. Röhkökarin apaja – V and P86. Syvänapaja 15. Mäntynokka (low quality apaja)51. Selkäsaaren apaja – V and P87. Ojansuu 16. Alasen apaja (very good apaja)52. Röhkön apaja 88. Vesassalon apaja – V 17. Mottala (very good apaja) – ES and V53. Leppäsenranta89. Röyniön salmi – V 18. Niemen Kirkkonokka – V 54. Myyryssalmen taka-apaja – a lot of V in Autumn 90. Pikku-Röyniön kaislanokka – V 19. Majasaaren väli – V 55. Myyryssaaren apaja – V 91. Korpisen pohjoisapaja – V 20. Iso-Loukkulahti – V 56. Myyryssaaren apaja – good for V92. Lastuunokka – V 21. Vähä-Loukkulahti – V 57. Myyryssalmi – a lot of V in Autumn 93. Korpisen taka-apaja – P 22. Tarkanranta – V 58. Myyryspooki (low quality apaja)94. Läättilahti – V 23. Majaluodon nokka – V 59. Haapatörmä – ES 95. Taavetinkoivu – V 24. Leveesalmi – V 60. Riihilahti – good for B96. Korpisen eteläpään apaja – V 25. Kupusalmi – V 61. Halkolaani– V 97. Seinäkallion apaja – V 26. Lukonapaja – spawning ES62. Lammasnokka (preferred by Karelian refugees) – V 98. Paavonranta – ES and V 27. Huvilanedusta – V 63. Vetämäkannanperä– good for B99. Särkänsivu – V 28. Toltaansalon kärki – V 64. Vetämäkannan mettänalus– V 100. Särkänpää – V 29. Kulonnokka – V 65. Vetämäkannan nokka – V 101. Särkänniemi – V 30. Ahvenapaja – V and P66. Paksulanhieta – V 31. Kulonlahti – ES and V67. Paksulanhieta (for Karelians) – V 32. Nuottaladon nokka – ES and V68. Paksulanhieta (for Karelians) – V 33. Hiedanalusta– ES 69. Ilmakka 34. Mettänalusta (Levonpieli) – ES 70. Lehtisaari 35. Vääränapaja (extremely good apaja) – ES 71. Lehtisaari 36. Kahilanapaja (extremely goodapajawith many crews waiting their turn to pull) – ES 72. Koppasaari

Table 1. Names of the apaja sites at the northern part of Lake Näsijärvi (V=Vendace, ES=European Smelt, P=Perch and B=Common Bream).

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already a mixed fishery of both subsistence and economic activities. Other species identified for specific apaja sites include common bream (Abramis brama) and perch (Perca fluviatilis).

Names, more specifically hydronyms, of the sites contain information about features of the lake bottom and the lake (such as Isokivi – Big rock, Syvänapaja – a deep site), geographical locations (i.e. Laivan sillanpieli – Side of the dock towards the ship), family and individual naming and own- ership (i.e. Kahilanapaja of the Kahila family, Röyniö for the seining crew of Röyniö), and sites that the new arrivals from Karelia (Suomela 1976) started to utilise (i.e. Lammasnokka) (Nieminen &

Mustonen 2004).

Fig. 1. Endemic time-spaces of Lake Näsijärvi and Kokemäen- joki River catchment area man- ifesting through the dozens of different species-related apaja catch sites. This map portrays toponyms as recorded in the 1940s. Contemporary spellings include: Iso Leppäsalo = Iso Leppisalo, Haarunsaari = Haar- unsaari, Iso Vesasalo = Iso-Ve- sassalo, Kuorannanlahti = Törölänlahti.

Adapted from Mustonen and Nieminen (2004).

Therefore, apaja sites are both localities pos- sessed by the fishermen and connections as well as manifestations of time-spaces of natural watersheds and the various ecological cycles inherent in these catchment areas. Some fishermen consider the apaja sites to be their most precious possession (see more in Mustonen 2009), a notion present also as a customary ownership in Käki (1969) and endemically-controlled regime in full operation in Raussi (1966).

A distinct feature of the Kokemäenjoki River watershed is the summer seining. For the most part, summer seining ceased in the 1950s. Only the memories and maps of a vast endemic aquatic regime (Maaranen 2002), once controlled and mas-

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tered by the late Ahlgrén and his colleagues, remain. As Hudson (2001) and Lehtinen (2011) point out, such maps can only pass on information in their two-dimensional beings, but they do not convey the multiple, endemic customary ways of engaging and interacting with such time-spaces and the fish inherent in them.

Case of Lake Kuivasjärvi in the headwaters of Kokemäenjoki River

Northeast of Lake Näsijärvi is a small lake, Kuivas- järvi. Kuivasjärvi belongs to the upper reaches of the Kokemäenjoki River watershed (Hämeen ELY- keskus 2014). The lake catchment area has been the target of large-scale industrial peat production since the 1970s. Before that the lake and watershed were subjected to ditch drainage for forestry purposes: “After the war ditching took place all over the watershed” (Snowchange Kuivasjärvi Oral History Tape 151013). The lake water levels were lowered in 1904 (Valonen 1945).

The lake is known for its rich cultural heritage, pre-historic Sámi populations, and place names (Valonen 1945; Laaksonen 1999: 126−127), and for having a distinct character as a ‘border’ zone between the low-lying lands of Pohjanmaa and the once-forested, hilly region of Häme. Valonen (1945) quotes Elias Lönnrot from the 1800s who identified the region to be very rich in folklore and ethnographic materials. Valonen (1945) writes that around Lake Kuivasjärvi the knowledge regarding the deities of the forest Finns, such as Tapio, Liek- kiö and so on, have been preserved:

“My father told me that the people of Hiisi [one of the old Finnish spirit-gods] travelled on Lake Kuiv- asjärvi in winter time. I do not remember the kind of noise they made, but old people said that they are there, moving.” From a conversation with a 92-year-old subsistence fisherman, Kuivasjärvi, Snowchange Kuivasjärvi Oral History Tape 120214

Additionally, this knowledge survived until the 1930s fairly intact (Valonen 1945). Laaksonen (1999) agrees and confirms the special role the watershed has as a traditional cultural region.

Since August 2013 the catchment area of Lake Kuivasjärvi has been the focus area of natural sci- ences and local knowledge restoration project and people's movement (Ylä-Satakunta 2013). The ini-

tiative is one of the first to utilise endemic time- spaces, oral histories, water/land use, and occupancy mapping in water-body restoration activities in Finland. The first results from the oral history materials confirm what Laaksonen (1999) presents – the fishermen and other local people still remember the endemic uses and relationships with their lake.

The subsistence fishermen of Lake Kuivasjärvi who were born in the 1930s remember seining:

“They used to seine here in the 1920s and 1930s, still.” (Snowchange Kuivasjärvi Oral History Tape 151013). According to them, the place names on the western bank of the lake can still pinpoint the harvesting sites. Seining, both winter and summer, was reintroduced on the lake in the mid-2000s, but has not become a resident cultural practice, at least not yet (Mustonen 2014b).

As a part of the ecological restoration project, oral histories were documented along the lake between October and February 2014 to investigate the surviving aspects of endemic time-spaces and their manifestations on this water body. Addition- ally, place names were analysed using fishing diaries collected for historical catches between 1968 and 1991 and contemporary catch diaries. This period was chosen, because it coincides with the time of aggressive peat production expansion into the watershed. Lastly, a set of optic histories (Mustonen & Feodoroff 2013) were developed through the use of photographic material spanning from the 1930s to the 1980s to investigate direct ecological change resulting from the increased use of fertilizers, peat production, and eutrophication (see Tikkanen 2002b for national trends) processes throughout the 20^th century (Fig. 2).

After the seining had been ceased, the endemic time-spaces of Lake Kuivasjärvi manifest best in the fish trap fishery along the lake (Fig 3). The activity continues to this day and as optic histories from the 1950s record, it is an old practice and a key activity within the cultural fishery of the Kokemäenjoki River catchment area: “Fish traps were instrumental in our family harvests in the 1940s and 1950s”. (Snowchange Kuivasjärvi Oral History Tape 161013).

Traditionally, the locations of these fish traps were family-owned, and carefully chosen to catch spawning pikes and perch all the way up to the 1970s (Snowchange Kuivasjärvi Oral History Tape 161013). Through the first round of oral history documentation in the autumn 2013, endemic time-spaces were related to many characteristics,

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like weather prediction, place names, family-controlled customary locations along the lake, berry picking and hunting areas of mire-marshes, which had been lost as the industrial ditching to drain areas began.

As a mechanism to explore and assess ecological change in a water body, relationships between local people and three different fish species emerged as key indicators of endemic time-spaces. First, the interviewed people explained the special role northern pike (Esox lucius) has in Lake Kuivasjärvi (Snow-

Fig. 2. A set of three photographs, i.e. visual-optic histories documented in the same locality on the western bank of Lake Kuivasjärvi close to the island Saarelansaari from 1947 to 1970s, illustrate the rapid ecological change and proceeding eutrophication of the lake as a result of human-induced activities. Photos by Mauri Kallio 1947 (left), Erkki Saarela 1975 (mid- dle) 1979 (right).

change Kuivasjärvi Oral History Tape 161013). If a certain fish is caught, it can be used to predict things to come. The special characteristics of pikes in Lake Kuivasjärvi were documented, but the people who still understood these aspects of traditional knowledge as being relevant considered the more detailed information to be sacred or forbidden (see for example in Laaksonen 1999 and Snowchange Kuiv- asjärvi Oral History Tape 161013). They are only to be discussed on the lake, in person, and are not to be recorded or written down.

Fig. 3. The harvest of spawning northern pike using fish traps on the western shores of Lake Kuivasjärvi in the spring 1957.

Photos by Erkki Saarela 1957.

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Secondly, both oral and optic histories from the early 1900s confirm that Lake Kuivasjärvi used to have an endemic population of pikeperch (Sander lucioperca). This is significant because, as eutrophication proceeds and water quality worsens, pikeperch is one of the species which benefits. Additionally, it is the central species in the stocking plans and actions by the local fisheries body, but with stocks introduced from another watershed (Snowchange Kuivas- järvi Oral History Tape 151013). Therefore the genetic pool of the endemic pikeperch mixes most likely with the stocked fish and changes the balance of the lake and fisheries in favour of harvesting the introduced fish.

Finally, the role of common bream (Abramis brama) manifests in the local knowledge and endemic time-spaces of Lake Kuivasjärvi area prominently as an ecological indicator species.

It has a central role in the traditional calendar of the community. Three spawning times, which simultaneously refer to the fish themselves (Thrift & May 2001), kirsilahna (”When the ground is still frozen at night time, mid-May”- bream), juhannuslahna (”Mid-summer- bream”) and tähkälahna (”When the ear of a grain-bear- ing tip part of a cereal plant, such as wheat, is visible and ripe-bream”) indicate the sizes of fish to be harvested, the smallest first and the largest ones last (Suomen luonto 2007). Docu- mented interviews position the arrival of the common bream to coincide with the large-scale industrial peat production by the state energy company VAPO (Snowchange Kuivasjärvi Oral History Tape 151013).

More precisely, as one fisherman born in the 1930s said:

“At first we did not have common bream on Lake Kuivasjärvi at all. It arrived from lakes Ylinen and Vatajanjärvi, which are upstream from here, when the peat production began to impact those waters. Then the breams swam here, preceding the discharges of peat. We have an old saying regarding the bream in Lake Kuivasjärvi: There was a child of a Roma, living on Lake Kuivasjär- vi. He swallowed a bream’s fish bone, but it got caught in his throat. The older Roma cursed the common bream because of this and banished them from Lake Kuivasjärvi. All of them then swam downstream, to Lake Linnanjärvi and there were no more breams in Lake Kuivasjärvi after that.” (Snowchange Kuivasjärvi Oral History Tape 151013)

Cortazzi (2001) frames the narrative analysis to yield good results in oral history research. In this account, the Roma (Pulma 2012), or the gypsies, play a central role as in many other village stories in the rural Finland. They refer sometimes to the 'other' and do not need to specifically be related to the real-life ethnic Roma. However, as Husso and Raento (2002b) indicate the Roma(ni) have been at “the bottom of the social pecking order”

in Finland ever since arriving in 1500s (Rekola 2012) and are consequently a popular subject of oral histories in rural areas (Pulma 2012; Rekola 2012: 67−69).

The endemic time-spaces contain oral histories with a very clear view of the absence of common bream from Lake Kuivasjärvi. Yet, once industrial peat production began, common bream reap- peared and remained, as if from the mythological times of the story. Written sources, such as Ylä- Satakunta (1964), from these times identify that within the district of the Kuivasjärvi fishing ‘council’ (kalastuskunta), between 1954−1964, there were 1,050,000 whitefishs, 250,000 pike perchs, 50,000 vendaces, 700 trouts and 20,000 common breams stocked to various water bodies within its jurisdiction. However, specific reference is made that common bream was not stocked in Lake Kuivasjärvi (see also Aamulehti 1957). Fishermen born in the 1940s and 1950s confirm its reappearance in the 1970s (Snow- change Kuivasjärvi Oral History Tape 110214).

Indeed, common bream is another species that benefits from warmer waters and further contrib- utes to eutrophication (Tikkanen 2002b) and other impacts caused by the industrial activities in the watershed.

To summarize, there are living oral histories and practices in the documented endemic time- spaces of the Kokemäenjoki River catchment area. They reached their prime prior to large- scale industrial uses of the waterways, but cur- rently persist in memory and somewhat in practice. Most importantly, the summer seining along Lake Näsijärvi illustrates the richness of these Western Finnish cultural readings. Secondly, the oral histories as a part of a watershed restoration activities (Mustonen 2013b; Ylä-Satakunta 2013), carry meaning, customary water uses, beliefs, and environmental observations of heavily-dam- aged areas and key markers of what, where, and how things changed.